Chương 26: Monster Given a Heart

One hundred years ago, the flames of war between Helheim and Yggdrasil were beginning to fade. Vanitas Sanguine had been slain by the Hero. The non-aggression pact was being formed. On paper, the war was ending. But hatred did not vanish simply because leaders signed agreements. Many humans still hated demons. Some hated them quietly. Others hunted them. In the region of Álfheimr, a child ran through the forest. Her bare feet struck the dirt as branches cut against her skin.

Her breathing came in desperate gasps, and tears blurred her vision as the voices behind her grew closer.

"There she is!"

"Don't let the demon escape!" The girl looked back. Several civilians chased after her with weapons in their hands. Her parents were already dead. She had watched them fall. She had heard their screams. Now those same people wanted her too. The child had white hair with a patch of black running through it. Small horns curved from her head, and a thin tail dragged behind her as she stumbled through the trees. Her green eyes were wide with terror, and her black dress was torn from running.

She did not have a name anymore. Not one anyone would call. Not one anyone cared to know. She only knew that she wanted to live. The girl tripped over a root and fell hard against the ground. Behind her, the shouting grew louder. She pushed herself up, sobbing, and ran deeper into the forest. Then she saw it. A strange suit rested beneath the trees. It was white and puffy, with a container attached to its back and a round glass dome where the head should have been. It looked too clean to belong in the forest.

Too strange to have been left there by chance. The child stared at it with trembling eyes.

"C-can this…" Her voice broke.

"Can this protect me?" The voices behind her came closer. She had no time to think. No time to wonder who had left it there. No time to notice the darkness sleeping inside. The girl crawled into the suit and pulled it shut around herself. Inside, the world went quiet. For one brief moment, she thought she was safe. Then something moved in the dark. A fragment of Black Mist had been waiting inside the suit. And now, it had found a body. The townsfolk reached the suit moments later.

"There!" One of them pointed toward the strange white shape beneath the trees.

"She hid in there!" They surrounded it, weapons raised, breathing hard from the chase. One man stepped forward and grabbed the edge of the glass dome.

"Come out, demon." He pulled it open. The suit fell over. Small bones spilled out onto the dirt. For a moment, no one spoke. The child was gone. Her flesh had been picked clean from the bone. Only a tiny skeleton remained inside the suit, surrounded by thick black liquid that slowly spilled onto the ground. The townsfolk stumbled back.

"What the hell is that?" The black liquid twitched. The Black Mist. The unbridled resentment of Vanitas Sanguine. A monster born after the Hero's party carved away his skin and turned it into a coat. A hive mind made from hatred. A creature that existed only to slaughter the people of Yggdrasil. And yet, in its blind rage, it had killed a child of Helheim. A child Vanitas would have wanted to protect. For the first time, that small fragment of malice felt something other than hatred. It felt grief.

The Black Mist trembled around the bones. It remembered. Not with eyes. Not with ears. But with the lingering soul of the man it had once belonged to. The girl had been the same age Cyrus and Cynthia would have been. A child. A frightened child. A child who had begged to be protected. And it had devoured her. The Black Mist began to take form. The hive mind fractured. Something new was born within it. An ego. A self. The liquid wrapped itself around the girl's skeleton, shaping itself into the body she had lost.

White hair. A patch of black. Small horns. A tail. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Green eyes made from empty light. The townsfolk stared in horror as the child stood again.

"What the hell?" One of them gripped his pitchfork.

"Damn monster!" He charged. The pitchfork stabbed straight through the girl's head. It did nothing. The black, slime-like flesh only rippled around the weapon. The girl slowly raised one finger. A small bullet of Black Mist formed at the tip. Then it fired. The shot pierced the man's neck. He dropped the pitchfork and staggered back, clutching his throat. The Black Mist crawled into the wound. His eyes widened. Then he screamed. The mist spread beneath his skin, devouring him from the inside out.

The others panicked.

"Run!"

"Kill it!"

"Monster!" The girl stood among them, trembling. Black liquid dripped from her face like tears. But she had no tear ducts. No flesh. No heart. Still, she cried.

"Her name…" Her voice was small. Broken.

"Her name was Annabelle." The townsfolk froze. The girl looked down at the bones beneath her feet.

"If neither of us had been blinded by rage…" Her hands shook.

"She would still be alive." Then the Black Mist surged outward. The monster without tear ducts continued to cry. And as it cried, it killed every townsman who had chased Annabelle into the forest. When the screaming finally stopped, the forest became quiet. Jupiter stood alone among the bodies. Black Mist dripped from her hands. The borrowed shape of Annabelle trembled in the silence. Then she turned back toward the suit. Something flickered inside it. A small flame. It was weak. Barely burning. But it was there.

The last remnant of the girl's soul. Jupiter stared at it. For the first time since she had gained a self, she felt something that was not rage. Guilt.

"I want to atone for what I did." Her voice shook as she knelt before the tiny flame.

"I'll bring you back, Annabelle." The Black Mist moved gently this time. Not to devour. Not to destroy. It wrapped around the flame like a cage. Like a blanket. Like hands trying to protect something precious without knowing how. Jupiter placed the small orb within her own chest. The flame disappeared beneath the darkness. Then she climbed back into the white suit. The glass dome sealed over her head, hiding the childlike form beneath it. The inside filled with black until no face could be seen at all.

Jupiter looked at the bodies around her one last time. Then she began to walk. The suit was heavy, but she carried it forward.

"Somewhere in this world," she muttered, "there has to be someone who can do more than kill." Her footsteps faded into the forest. For years, Jupiter wandered. Searching. Killing when threatened. Protecting the tiny flame inside her chest. Until one day, she met a man in a plague mask. A man who smiled beneath a false face. A man who looked at the fragment of Annabelle's soul and promised her something impossible.

"I can help you bring her back." That promise was how Jupiter reached this point. That promise was why she joined The Crows. That promise was why she now stood in Medusa's castle, sword of Black Mist in hand, facing Cyrus Sanguine. In the present, the battle began. Cyrus raised both hands.

"Niflheim." The air froze. Dozens of ice spears formed above him, their points aimed directly at Jupiter. He brought his hand down, and the spears rained toward her. Jupiter did not move. The Black Mist around her sword shifted, and her body lifted from the ground as if gravity had forgotten her. The spears struck the floor beneath her, shattering against the stone and spreading frost across the ballroom. Cyrus clicked his tongue. Ice spread from his feet, coating the entire floor in a shining sheet of white.

"If I can't strike you directly, then I'll take away your movement." Jupiter floated above the frozen floor. Completely unaffected. Cyrus narrowed his eyes.

"She's weightless?" Jupiter tilted her glass dome toward him. Inside, there was only darkness. Cyrus launched another wave of ice. Jupiter drifted between the attacks with unnatural ease. She did not dodge like a person. She moved like smoke, her body rising and falling through the air without effort. Every spear missed. Every shard of ice passed beneath her. The frozen floor meant nothing. Cyrus took a step back, ice forming around his fingers. His expression remained calm, but his eyes were sharper now.

"So weightlessness is part of your ability." Jupiter hovered above the frozen ballroom.

"Perhaps." Cyrus smiled faintly.

"I still just have to hit you once." He snapped his fingers. A spear of ice formed beside him. This one was thinner than the others. Sharper. Faster. Jupiter tilted her glass-covered head. Cyrus launched it. The spear shot through the air like a silver flash. Jupiter tried to drift aside, but the frozen floor beneath her suddenly erupted. Ice pillars burst upward, boxing her path for a single instant. That instant was enough. The spear struck her chest. A crack spread across the white suit.

Frost crawled over the glass dome, then down the puffy uniform. The Black Mist sword in her hand stiffened as ice began to seal around it. Cyrus raised his hand.

"Got you." Jupiter floated in place, half-frozen. For a moment, the ballroom was silent. Then she looked up. The darkness inside her dome shifted.

"How unfortunate." Cyrus narrowed his eyes. Jupiter's voice echoed softly through the glass.

"It seems the sky has aligned for my benefit." A strange pressure filled the room. The frost around her began to hiss. Cyrus's eyes widened.

"What?" Jupiter raised one frozen hand.

"Ability Activate." The ice cracked.

"Starsign." A red light pulsed from within her suit.

"Mars." Flames erupted around her body. The ice melted in an instant, turning to steam as fire wrapped around the white uniform. The glass dome glowed red, and the Black Mist sword in her hand began to burn without losing its shape. Cyrus stepped back as the heat rolled over him. The frozen floor beneath Jupiter melted into water, then boiled. Jupiter lowered slowly to the ground. Fire curled around her like a living mantle. Cyrus stared at her.

"A second ability?" Jupiter raised her burning sword.

"No." The flames reflected against the darkness inside her helmet.

"The stars simply favor different forms of war." The ballroom trembled beneath the heat. Cyrus formed another spear of ice, but this time, it began to melt before it fully took shape. Jupiter pointed her blade at him.

"Mars is the sign of flame, blood, and battle." Her voice grew colder than the ice she had just burned away.

"And right now, Cyrus Sanguine…" The fire around her surged.

"It favors me."